"The question, of course, is why Americans pay such high prices — and why we haven’t done anything about it."
This is probably the same reason we've taken close to 40 years to finally try and get off our dependence on foreign oil after Jimmy Carter said we needed to in 1978. Yet, we still pay more than we really should and haven't done anything about it.
Why? Lobbyists, too many layers of bureaucracy, special interest groups. Take your pick, but at the end of day, it takes a lot of people wanting to do the right thing to make things change. In this country, that's a lot harder to do than most people think.
Country US$ / US Gallon
U.S. $3.74
Vietnam $1.03
Yemen $2.76
Turkmenistan $0.72
Tunisia $3.75
Trinidad $2.42
Taiwan $3.78
Syria $3.15
Saudi Arabia $0.49
Quatar $0.83
Puerto Rico $3.63
Peru $3.60
Panama $3.14
Pakistan $3.46
Malaysia $2.31
Indonesia $2.23
Egypt $1.17
He did mean developed country. The US pays about two-thirds what Australians do for petrol, who in turn pay about two-third what Europeans do for petrol.
The panic that the US gets itself into when discussing fuel prices is amusing to watch. Australia is a big country with spread out cities like the US (or even more than the US) and similar wage levels, yet we don't have problems with post-paying cash for our fuel. In six weeks of driving around the US west a couple of years ago, I never found a single place where I could post-pay with cash - they were all too afraid of drive-offs. Weird.
Also, you've mangled the statistics - for example, you've used Vietnam's price per litre against the US's price per gallon.
Paying for the gasoline after you put it in the vehicle. At most gas stations in the US, if you want to pay with cash, you park your vehicle at a pump, go inside and prepay a certain amount, fill up your vehicle, and then go back inside to collect any money you didn't spend.
Thanks for the correction on Vietnam - I double checked and wasn't able to find another instance of mangling, but since you said "for example", I imagine there are others I missed.
This is probably the same reason we've taken close to 40 years to finally try and get off our dependence on foreign oil after Jimmy Carter said we needed to in 1978. Yet, we still pay more than we really should and haven't done anything about it.
Why? Lobbyists, too many layers of bureaucracy, special interest groups. Take your pick, but at the end of day, it takes a lot of people wanting to do the right thing to make things change. In this country, that's a lot harder to do than most people think.